About us

 

 

We are Frits and Irene, living in Overloon, North-Brabant, The Netherlands. Together with our two teenage sons and lots of animals we live on a small farm close to the woods and lake.

Irene had pets since her early youth, including several breeds of dogs : Alsatians, several crossbreds, Terriers and, together with Frits, a Flatcoated Retriever, Friesian Stabyhoun (a Dutch breed) and labrador retrievers. Frits didn't have pets when he was a child, but made up in his adult years ! 

In 2016, when our 2 labrador retrievers reached their retirement age, we started looking for a new breed. Although we liked the labrador retriever breed, we were now looking for a breed with more guarding skills. After a burglary in our home (our labrador retrievers, who were very friendly, probably invited the burglars into the house 😉), we were quite sure : our next dog needed good guarding skills ! Besides that, we were also looking for a decent sized dog with good character ánd good looks ! 

Irene's colleague owned a (male) Maremma, Bruno. In the holiday period, this dog stayed with us for a couple of weeks, giving us the perfect opportunity to get to know the breed. It took us both about one day to decide : our next dog had to be a Maremma ! 

In The Netherlands, the Maremma population is very small (approx. 100 animals overall). We contacted the only active Dutch breeder, Eline Jagtenberg (Parcodaini). After visiting her and her beautiful dogs, we were even more enthusiastic ! 

In January 2017 our first Maremma was born : Jon Snow (Briciolo di Speranza Parcodaini). In the next Parcodaini litter (August 2017) Vici (Veni Vidi Vici é Basta Parcodaini) was born. For more information about our dogs, see "Our dogs". 

We hope to breed our first own litter in spring 2020. We breed according to the breed standard of the VHB ( Dutch Association for Shepherd Dogs) : https://www.vhbinfo.com (in Dutch).

Recently Irene completed a dog breeding educational program and joined several courses about dog breeding and dogs in general.